MHP’s problem and future Turkish politics

İhsan Yılmaz

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli issued a written statement a few days ago and asked the Gülen movement to freeze its activities. It may sound shocking and implausible, but this is what he asked.

Given his past record with regards to abnormalities -- such as his prediction that in the year 2009, the MHP would come to power just because it was the MHP’s 40th anniversary and when one drops two zeros it was 29 and when 2 and 9 added together and added to 29 it was 40 -- one may be inclined to not take him seriously and to ignore his request to the movement. But I will try to analyze the factors why the MHP’s leader seems so distressed and disturbed.

The MHP has a nationalist ideology, but in the Turkish context this ideology has had to be closely intertwined with Islam, which is to a greater extent the grammar of this society. The MHP’s nationalism was not a form of secularist nationalism nor was it purely based on patriotism. Even though it has always included some members who were closer to racist interpretations of nationalism, generally speaking the party has mostly followed a culturalist and inclusive nationalism. Having said this, I must add that when it comes to the Kurdish issue, the party only embraced Kurds as “future Turks” who should soon or later “convert” to Turkishness. For the MHP the national identity has had to be formed around Turkish identity and because Turks are Muslims, this would be a hybrid Turkish-Muslim identity. In this vein, ethnically non-Turkish citizens of Turkey such as Armenians and Greeks are never considered as true Turkish citizens by the MHP. This ideology worked well until the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement and the MHP commanded the monopoly of nationalism in Turkey.

With the rise of the AK Party voters who are proud of their Turkishness but at the same time are practicing Muslims started staying away from the MHP and tended to vote for the AK Party. With the rise of the Gülen movement, people have become comparatively well versed with Islam and have increasingly realized that in Islam one could be A patriot but not a nationalist, as the most virtuous in the eyes of God is the one who is most respectful of God, and ethnicity is not relevant. The second major impact of the Gülen movement on the MHP’s nationalism is that the movement’s schools, tutoring centers, weekly religious study circles and so on have tremendously helped the culturally conservative but generally uneducated MHP voter base to widen their horizon and jettison exclusively nationalist ideas. In other words, the Gülen movement’s impact on Turkish society is negatively correlated to the MHP’s impact. And, in the last Sept. 12, 2010 referendum, about half of traditional MHP voters preferred to listen to the movement and not to Bahçeli, who has since become very furious against the movement.

Being aware of the AK Party’s naturally intended and the Gülen movement’s unintended challenges, the MHP, under the leadership of Bahçeli, followed a secularized version of nationalism and to a great extent stayed away from Islamic manifestations and blaming the AK Party for abusing religion. But this did not work well for the party as the CHP has already been representing “de-Islamicized nationalism.” When the original non-Islamic and secularist nationalism option is available, people see no reason to vote for the imitator.

As for the future, my guess is that pro-religious nationalism will gradually disappear from the Turkish political scene and in the post-AK Party era, there will be a competing number of Islam-friendly parties in the ideological spectrum, leaving no politically meaningful room for the MHP’s current ideology.

Published on Today's Zaman, 02 April 2011, Saturday